Page 3417 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 22 August 2018
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Young people believe that imposing a curfew would restrict their freedom of movement around our city. But it is not just young people who are concerned. Many P-platers are not young people, and they need to move around at night as well. Half of the entire community that has been polled—young people, middle-aged people and the old—are concerned about what a curfew means.
Every one of us who drives has had to have P-plates at one time in our lives. It is part of the story of growing up, gaining independence and taking responsibility for oneself. Many of us can remember taking part in late-night study sessions on campus, getting home from our part-time jobs or sometimes even being labelled the deso on a night out. All these commitments may require at least one person with access to a car when other forms of safe transport are limited.
A curfew on the next generation of young drivers, to many in our community, signals a loss of freedom, a loss of independence, and a loss of responsibility. But I think that what has really resonated in the community is the inherent unfairness of policies like curfews. We know that the majority of young drivers are doing the right thing on our roads at night. We know that dangerous driving occurs throughout all age brackets on our roads, and that accidents and tragic deaths occur at times of the day which would not be subject to a curfew. And we know that it is only a small minority of people who are doing the wrong thing, yet a P-plate curfew would treat all P-plate drivers as second-class citizens.
The thing that has struck me in the feedback to me on this issue is the variety of journeys that many young people may make at night. I have heard of many of them, whether it is getting up early and driving to rowing on our lakes; driving to the airport to catch the 6 am Virgin flight out of Canberra; being the designated driver responsible for getting your mates home safely; coming home from your boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s house to avoid their parents in the morning; or, of course, driving to and from the graveyard shift at work.
These are all valid journeys. It would be extremely difficult for any exemption scheme to capture the array of quite legitimate journeys that young people make at night. We also need to be careful that an exemption scheme would not place judgment on these late-night journeys. An exemption scheme would also not address the fundamental principle, which is that young people should have freedom of movement around our city. It would also do little to reduce the discriminatory effect of the curfew reforms proposed. I really do think that an exemption scheme would also be costly, bureaucratic and confusing for motorists and police. The last thing that we want in our city is for P-platers with an exemption to be pulled over regularly by the police to check their papers. That is a police state, Madam Speaker. We are better than that in the ACT. When these types of regulations were introduced in other jurisdictions like New South Wales, led by campaigns by the Daily Telegraph, we have stood up for civil liberties and resisted changes which infringe on those liberties unfairly.
I want to go back to that period of P-plate change in New South Wales. Our party, the Labor Party, in the Assembly resisted the Canberra Liberals’ push to bring in the same
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